Nightclub Shooting: 19-Year-Old Girl Dies. Emerging Boss Injured

A heated argument ensued, some pushing and shoving, and at least one young man pulled out a gun and began shooting wildly into the crowd.

A bullet hits Antonia Lopez , 19 years old: it lodges in her shoulder, severs her aorta, causes a hemorrhage and kills her within minutes.

Another bullet wounds his friend Eugenio Palermiti, 20, son of Gianni and nephew of the eponymous boss of the Japigia district of Bari , currently in prison. Three other young men were injured by bullets.

One of these is Francesco Crudele , a driver from Palermo and nephew of another victim of an ambush that occurred in 2009. The injured are not in danger of life and will recover in a few weeks.

Among the injured were Eugenio Palermiti and his driver

The scene of the attack was the private room at Bahia Beach , a beach club that transforms into a nightclub at night, promising on Instagram stories: “Winter here? It's going to be a wonderful spring.” On the night between Saturday and Sunday, however, all hell broke loose.

“It happened in an instant,” says Nicola Spadavecchia , owner of the club on the Molfetta coast (Bari) . “It was 2:45, towards the end of the night, when these guys entered my club and tragedy struck. I wasn't on the dance floor, I was in my office: this group entered and in a very short time all hell broke loose. Security intervened, but it was too late for the 19-year-old.”

The motive for the attack remains unclear. The Bari Anti-Mafia Department , led by Deputy Prosecutor Francesco Giannella, has launched an investigation, which has been handed over to the Carabinieri, who are interviewing many of the young men present at the club. One thing seems clear: it was a settling of scores between rival mafia clans.

It is said that Eugenio Palermiti, in recent days, driven by the exuberance of his 20 years and the desire to demonstrate his criminal caliber, attempted to intimidate someone in a neighborhood where the presence of Palermiti is not tolerated.

The target was precisely the emerging boss Palermiti

To do this he would have used mafia methods, worthy of a boss. And last night there would have been the response of the rivals, far from intimidated, with a sensational gesture that led to the death of the girl who accompanied him, to the wounding (in the hands) of the scion himself, his driver and two other young people.

The murdered 19-year-old was the niece of Ivan Lopez , who died in an ambush on the IX Maggio seafront in Bari, in the San Girolamo district, on September 29, 2021. According to the prosecution, the crime was committed by men acting on behalf of the Capriati clan from Bari Vecchia and the Parisi-Palermiti clan from the Japigia district, who were feuding with the Strisciuglio clan , who controlled San Paolo and San Girolamo. On her Instagram profile, the girl often remembered her murdered uncle, expressing her sympathy and grief.

Lopez, according to investigators, was killed in retaliation because, together with his brother Francesco (now a collaborator of justice), he had extorted from Davide Lepore (believed to be the perpetrator of the crime), owner of some garages in Bari and close to the Capriati clan of the old city (and, previously, to the Parisi-Palermiti clan). The Lopez brothers, on the other hand, were members of the Strisciuglio clan.

The comment of the governor of Puglia, Michele Emiliano

The governor of Puglia, Michele Emiliano, declared that in Molfetta there could have been "yet another clash between criminal gangs fighting over control of the clubs and drug dealing linked to the movida".

He asked for the intervention of the institutions and "a major and coordinated investigative effort and the support of the entire citizenry". Filippo Melchiorre, senator from Bari of FdI and member of the Anti-Mafia Commission, reached the scene of the crime on Sunday morning, stating that the murder "would be attributable to a feud between clans, a very serious episode that occurred in the presence of hundreds of young people, which requires a serious and in-depth reflection on how to eradicate the mafia culture from its roots and build a society that believes in fair and functioning justice".